Throughout the 2025 NFL season, SB Nation’s Doug Farrar will write about the game’s Secret Superstars — those players whose performances might slip under the radar for whatever reasons. In this installment,
we feature Carolina Panthers running back Rico Dowdle, who gave a Joe Namath-style guarantee in the week leading up to his revenge game against the Dallas Cowboys, and then backed every bit of it up — with authority.
Well, Rico Dowdle did try to warn his former NFL team.
After a 2024 season in which Dowdle gained 1,079 rushing yards and scored two rushing touchdowns on 235 carries, adding 39 catches on 49 targets for 249 yards and three more touchdowns, he was deemed irrelevant by the team that signed him as an undrafted free agent out of South Carolina in 2020. Dowdle didn’t do much for the Cowboys in his first three NFL seasons; it took an empty running back room for him to get his shot, and he did the best he could with it.
Still, he needed a new home, and the Carolina Panthers provided that with a one-year, $2.75 million contract, and the opportunity to compete with Chuba Hubbard in the backfield. Hubbard was the main man until a calf injury slowed him down in early October, and that became Dowdle’s time to shine. In Week 5 against the Miami Dolphins, Dowdle gained 206 yards and scored a rushing touchdown on 23 carries. He forced eight missed tackles, had four runs of 15 or more yards, and had just one negative run. Add in his three catches on three targets for 28 yards, and it was a bravura performance in Carolina’s 27-24 win.
Then, the revenge game against the Cowboys, who came into Week 6 with Javonte Williams as their factor back. Dowdle made it clear in the leadup to the game that Jerry Jones made a mistake in deeming him redundant. Dowdle said that the Cowboys had better “buckle up” for this one, and not everybody on the other side seemed to take him seriously.
Dowdle, the reigning NFC Offensive Player of the Week (and who also made Secret Superstars last December), may have doubled up on that honor after the Panthers’ 30-27 win, in which he totaled 183 yards on 30 carries. Dowdle had six more runs of 15 or more yards, and he didn’t have a single negative run in the entire game. He also had four catches on five targets for 56 yards and a touchdown, and become the sixth running back in the Super Bowl era with at least 225 scrimmage yards and a touchdown in consecutive games. The other guys are pretty impressive overall:
Dalvin Cook (2020 with Minnesota);
Le’Veon Bell (2014 with Pittsburgh);
Deuce McAllister (2003 with New Orleans);
Marshall Faulk (2002 with the St. Louis Rams); and
Walter Payton (1977 with Chicago).
Pretty, pretty good. Dowdle also gained 122 rushing yards after contact, the most by any Panthers running back in the Next Gen Stats era, which goes back to 2016, and includes that Christian McCaffrey guy.
Meanwhile, Javonte Williams gained 29 yards on 13 carries, and the Panthers outlasted Dallas for a 30-27 win.
“Great job tonight,” Dak Prescott said of his former teammate. “Great job last week. He told us to buckle up. He got the last laugh. We got a hell of a group of running backs. I love my team, but I miss the guy. Rico is a hell of a friend. But I’m proud of him more than anything. As I said, I messaged him last week, but I didn’t get to see him right after the game. I’ll connect with him. He knows there’s nothing but love.”
Panthers head coach Dave Canales acknowledged Dowdle’s extra feeling on Sunday, but also made the credible point that it’s what Dowdle can do all the time.
“Just looked like the same guy last week,” Canales said. “Ran with violence. Had a plan. A man on a mission that wants to make yards and really just take our schemes and make them come alive. He’d be up here, first thing he would say is give credit to the offensive line, the tight ends for blocking, the wide receivers involved and all that to create another successful day on the ground. But I’m sure — he’s human. I’m sure there’s emotions for him coming from his former team and all that so I will acknowledge that part of it but I didn’t see a difference from what he did last week. I just saw great execution and great attitude when he ran the ball.”
In the end, Dowdle was as happy about the win as anything he did.
“Just staying in the moment,” Dowdle said about transcending the self-created hype. “I know I said those comments. I talked to a couple of guys out there and they know I meant no harm by it. That’s me, I just always talk and joke around with them, and things like that. Just staying in the moment, I know don’t let it get too high or too low. I come here to do a job and I know what I got to do when I go out there.“
The 2025 Panthers are now 3-3, two wins off their entire 2024 total. Meanwhile, the Cowboys are 2-3-1, and though Rico Dowdle wouldn’t be able to help a Dallas defense that has become truly awful, Dak said it best — “I love my team, but I miss the guy.“
There’s probably a lot of that going around Big D today.
